Day 10: Athens and the Acropolis here we come!

Day 10 Photo Album

Last day ☹! We woke up in Napflion and slumped downstairs to a fantastic fancy buffet with all sorts of pastries, eggs and toast toppings. I think that everyone was a little surprised to see the variety. There was even Nutella which I am sure Maddox enjoyed fully. After the buffet, we loaded into the vans and drove along the A7 to Athens for just under 2 hours. When we neared Athens, the traffic started slowly building and also same as the wind. As soon as we veered off the highway, the old cracked and yellow buildings were surrounding every spot possible, reaching up to the clouds (not really). The streets were packed with motorcyclists wearing and not wearing helmets and with people going somewhere important or milling around trying to sell goods. Surprisingly there were not many skyscrapers but the buildings were still tall.

We drove to our hotel - sometimes getting delayed by ongoing traffic - and met our tour guide (Theodora) for the afternoon. She guided us to the subway (or what I like to call the underground) and we boarded and unloaded at the Acropolis Museum. I was surprised how the underground system worked because it looked like people could bypass the ticketing process easily. As we approached the hotel we could see a reproduction of the old Athens city under a thick layer of glass underneath were we stood. Our guide guided us past a large lineup (whew!) and we started our experience in the museum. We stopped at a large amount of exhibits dating back way before the Acropolis was built (over 2500 years ago!). Our guide also talked about stories relating to the exhibits, including a myth about how Athena was born out of Zeus's head! Makes me wonder how that is possible. After visiting the interestingly designed Acropolis Museum, we headed up to the real thing! The Acropolis! As we walked up the glassy stairs to the large plateau, the views intensified the higher we walked. At the very top we could see an almost 360 view of the 5 million habited Athenian buildings. 2500 year old marble blocks lay around waiting to be preserved back to its original shape. If you did not know, the Acropolis was being preserved but it is very slow progress. One side is finished but the overseer of the project mentioned that it should take another 3 decades to complete, which is a ridiculously long time but it makes sense for such a delicate process. And because of the renovations, we were not able to enter the building, but I didn't mind because this was all I really wanted to see because the appearance of the building was enough to impress me alone.
Anyways, enough from me, I need to go for a well earned swim...
-oliver

After we went to the Acropolis, which was very cool. We went out to town and explored and shopped. For me I like going out to town. One of my favorite things on this trip was going out to town and exploring, because I like to imagine that I have a lot of freedom. I enjoy buying gifts for my family members because I know they care a lot of about me and appreciate it. I enjoyed the Underground ride because it was very different than what I am used to. It was very crowded and we needed to stay together close together to stay safe. For me being in Greece was a very good experience, I had Oliver to teach me common sense. I learned about how Greece is a very beautiful place and you can do many activities (including the River Neda walk which unfortunately I couldn't do 😢). Overall, Greece was fantastic and I had a great time and would encourage more people to take the opportunity to go to Greece next year.

Shae

ps. We are staying at the Hilton in Athens and it is AMAZING!